Your Right to Know

Criminal-background checks processed by the Ohio attorney general’s office under a new state law
no longer include information about arrests and charges that didn’t result in convictions. The
changes have some officials worried that employers are being given a false sense of security about
applicants.

In reaction, the state’s criminal-investigation agency will begin warning employers this week
that background-check information includes only convictions and guilty pleas.

The law was designed to make it easier for ex-offenders to find work after paying their debt to
society.

It shields information about individuals who have been arrested but not convicted; such
information used to be included in the reports. Critics say three categories of people don’t
deserve the benefits of the new law: juveniles convicted of serious crimes that aren’t required to
be reported; adults with recent arrests whose cases haven’t been concluded; and adults who years
ago violated their bail conditions and fled to avoid prosecution.

“It’s giving that prospective employer a peace of mind about someone they shouldn’t have,” said
Steve Raubenolt, deputy superintendent at the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

In recent months, Raubenolt said, the bureau has conducted background checks for a police
department’s applicant who had two drunken-driving arrests, and a hospital’s applicant who had a
pending murder charge in California that was never closed because she had been deemed mentally
incompetent. Both had to be reported as having no criminal record.

Attorney General Mike DeWine said yesterday that he has a list of “horror stories” of background
checks, mainly for juveniles, that involved serious crimes that under the law can’t be reported.
The law says that juvenile-court convictions can be reported only if they were for aggravated
murder, murder or sex crimes in which the youth was labeled a sex offender.

DeWine cited the case of a county children-services agency that requested a background check on
someone who turned out to have a 2006 juvenile-court rape conviction. That information couldn’t be
reported because he hadn’t been labeled a sex offender.

“From a common-sense point of view, if I was looking for a foster parent or looking for someone
to work with children or to be with children, I would want to know whether they had been convicted
of rape,” DeWine said.

He plans to soon ask legislators to fix the problem. He’s also asking county clerks of court and
probate courts to report on the conclusion of all cases as quickly as possible.

Under the new law, processing cases in which someone was arrested but not convicted has to be
done by hand, which is also creating a backlog of background checks and costing taxpayers. BCI has
racked up about $30,000 in overtime handling those checks since the law took effect last year.
Background checks that once took 20 days now require as long as three months.

The backlog caught the attention of the Ohio Casino Control Commission, where background checks
have gone from days to weeks, said spokeswoman Tama Davis.

That might be an issue in Cincinnati, where the state’s fourth and last casino opens in March;
about 600 employees are still to be hired, Davis said. The agency is confident that it will hit its
hiring deadlines, she said.

The legislation’s sponsor said he caught wind of the attorney general’s concerns late in the
legislative process last year and is open to revisions, particularly when it comes to people who
jumped bond.

Lawmakers never intended to reward people “who never showed up and faced the music,” said state
Sen. Bill Seitz, R-Cincinnati.

Sen. Shirley Smith, D-Cleveland, disagreed, saying the law is serving the purpose it was meant
to.

“We shouldn’t rush to judgment and prohibit a person from going to work when they have not been
convicted,” she said. “I don’t think we should say a person should not get a chance at employment
just because they’re waiting for a court date.”